Recep Gülcemal 
Pump.fun, the Solana-based meme coin platform, broke a new record in the crypto world by raising $500 million in just 12 minutes in its first ICO on 12 July 2025. The FOMO psychology of retail investors, strategic token locking policies and Solana’s high-speed infrastructure combined to create this crazy success!
Pump.fun Secrets of the Record Sale of 500 Million Dollars !
- Limited Token Supply and Sense of Urgency
Pump.fun offered only 12.5% (125 billion tokens) of the total 1 trillion PUMP tokens to the public. The inability to transfer tokens for the first 72 hours created FOMO in investors and accelerated the sale.
- More than 10,000 Wallets Participated in This Pre-Sale
More than 10 thousand wallets participated in the launch of Pump.fun. Most of the participating wallets were previously funded through PumpSwap.
A transaction volume of $448 million was realised directly on the Solana blockchain, taking advantage of high speed and low cost.
- Strategic Acquisitions and Ecosystem Expansion
Pump.fun took a big step in strengthening the ecosystem by purchasing Solana’s analysis platform Kolscan after the sale.
It was announced that price support will be provided by narrowing the supply with the token buyback programme.
Retail FOMO Ignited
Pump.fun caused a huge FOMO by using viral launch mechanics and social media impact. It succeeded in attracting generation Z investors with live broadcasts. A system was presented without requiring code knowledge with the logic of ‘Anyone Can Issue Token’.
Thanks to whale manipulations, it was seen that it created artificial demand by distributing small amounts of tokens to 500 different wallets. With these manipulations, it was seen that most investors made big profits while most investors suffered losses.
There was a lot of chaos in centralised exchanges. Technical problems arose on exchanges such as Kraken, KuCoin and Bybit. Some users could not sell their tokens. Pump.fun compensated these problems with refunds and airdrops.
Risks and Criticisms
Pump.fun reached a valuation of $ 4 billion with this launch. Pump and Dump concerns emerged. According to Solidus Labs data, 86.6% of the tokens launched on Pump.fun failed. Only 97,000 tokens were able to maintain liquidity above $ 1,000.
With a lawsuit filed in the US, Pump.fun was accused of ‘unregistered securities sales’. The UK FCA warned local users by declaring the platform ‘unauthorised’. It was said that serious problems may occur in the future within Pump.fun regarding these regulatory and legal problems.